


Why Sam Winchester Hates Metallica

by fannishliss



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, sassy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam knows better than to look or listen when he hears the door of the panic room open.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why Sam Winchester Hates Metallica

**Author's Note:**

> Quotation is from Metallica's "One" by memory and with all due respect.   
> Another quotation is loosely adapted from the Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal), page 456.

Sam can't trust his eyes.  He's locked down in Bobby's panic room, that much he knows for sure... same horrible cot, same iron walls, same poured cement floor, burning his feet with holy salt. 

Sam huddles on the cot, rocking back and forth, burying his forehead against his knees. 

Don't look, don't look, don't look.

He's muttering out loud probably, but at least the blood isn't flinging him up against the walls -- not yet, not like it did before -- just roiling around inside him like a school of ravenous eels, eating him inside out....

... nice train of thought, better to leave that behind. 

A beautiful guitar riff trickles up into his consciousness, making him sigh for a moment in relief, but then it drags lyrics and speed metal with it, and Sam is not quick enough to shut it down before darkness is taking my sight, absolute horror, I cannot live, I cannot die, oh please god wake me!

...Metallica lyrics don't work for Sam. 

Don't look, don't look, and now don't listen either, goddamnit, no, but damp down on the rage, it feeds the roiling eels, oh please God wake me!

Sam presses his forehead desperately against his knees as the power chords of One pound with surreal loudness against his ears.   He knows it isn't real.  Right?  This is not Guantanamo Bay, is it?  Is it?

"Dean! Dean!  oh God!  Dean?  Cas?  Help!"  he screams before he can stop himself.  Once he starts screaming, how will he ever stop?  Too late, he's already screaming. 

"Cas!  Dean!  somebody, help me!!"

Sam wraps his arms around his legs, holding himself together with all the strength he can muster.  He can't take the chance that the eels won't explode from his belly in smoky clouds of corruption, like they did when he pulled them out of Famine... it would kill him wouldn't it?  but Lucifer said...  he'd bring Sam back....  but he wouldn't really bother to heal him, would he -- all his useless organs, exposed to the world...

He hears the iron door click open. 

Don't look, don't look, don't listen, oh shit, whatever it is, it's not real; Sam made them swear they wouldn't let him out until he was clean this time.

But even though his forehead is still pressed tightly to his knees, his eyes squinched shut... the Metallica in his brain abruptly cuts off, and he hears soft footsteps crossing the floor towards him.... dress shoes, the rustling of a trenchcoat.

Don't look!  Sam screams at himself, but then he feels a touch on his shoulder. 

"Sam."

Just one word, but that could be a trick; sure the gravelly voice sounds sympathetic enough now, but as soon as he looks, if he listens, the snarls of disgust will lash out, calling him a monster. 

Every muscle in Sam's body contracts as he tries to make himself even smaller, locking himself down by sheer force of will. 

The door is not open. No one has come in.

"Sam," the rough voice repeats, and the grip on his shoulder tightens. 

Not real, not real.  Don't look!

Sam struggles to get a deep breath.  He's holding himself together so fiercely that his breathing is shallow and he's starting to feel lightheaded.  In fact, if he could just pass out... but no, what might he see when he awakens? What if he forgets and opens his eyes?  Sam chokes a bit and finds himself sobbing. It hurts, and he's just so tired, so hungry, and he could just break down the door, he knows he could... 

... but then the voice repeats his name again, and there's a hand on his other shoulder, the mattress dips beneath him, and the warmth of a body presses against him. 

It's not that Sam is cold... he feels like he's ice and fire and wind and stone and metal and absolutely empty all at once.  But the body pressing against him is solid, like a rockface is solid.  Immoveable.  Somehow vast.  The touch calms something in Sam just as at the same time it enrages something else.  Somehow the calm Sam stays in control. 

The hands on his shoulders stroke down his arms, firm and strong. The body presses warm against his back. 

"Sam, Dean is praying that someone will help him, help you. I can do no less."

Sam knows the voice isn't real.  Dean doesn't pray; hell, Sam doesn't either, now that he knows exactly how much praying gets him. But Sam is sobbing, please, please, despite the fact he's trying so very hard not to listen.

"Sam, I lay my hands upon you, beseeching my Father to lift you up, to hold you and strengthen you and fill you with his spirit, that you may know the healing power of his love."  The gravelly voice intones the words in English... and then he begins to sing, and the words are not the solemn Enochian of Angelic spellwork, but an echoing, windy, watery, starlight song made of nothing and everything.

Calmness, peace, washes over Sam, as the tendrils of power inside him draw back, resume their place in his spine, and the blood sinks deep into his liver and spleen, where the organs do their work (no exploding outward, no gaping maw), Sam's own blood begins its restorative rounds and the demonic surge drains away.

Sam comes to himself, soaked in urine and sweat and blood, with Castiel pressed against him, arms tight around him, rocking him, whispering hush, and the sun beams down through the opening in the ceiling, a new day.


End file.
